Idol Headlines for 04/05/12

Kris Allenrevealed to fans last night that the name of his album, “Thank you Camilla” is an ode to the house he lives in when he’s staying in Los Angeles. It’s like a home away from home!

James Durbin will be singing the National Anthem at the LA Kings final home game against the San Jose Sharks tonight at the Staples Center in LA.

Haley Reinhart will sing the National Anthem tonight before the Detroit Tigers opener against the Boston Red Sox.

Scotty McCreery, ‘Water Tower Town’ – Lyrics Uncovered – If you come from a small town, chances are you can relate to the lyrics to Scotty McCreery‘s new single, ‘Water Tower Town.’ The tune was penned by songwriters Cole Swindell, Tammi Kidd and Lynn Hutton, who each pulled from their own experiences growing up in the south for the song. “I remember I was watching a movie with a girl I was dating at the time,” Swindell tells Taste of Country, “and it had a water tower in it. She asked me if my town I grew up had a water tower like that. I remember picking up my phone — before I even answered her — and wrote ‘Water Tower Town’ in it, and I said, ‘Yep!’” – Read more at Taste of Country

Jury Selection To Start In Hudson Family Murder Trial – CHICAGO (CBS) – The first step of jury selection begins Thursday in the trial of William Balfour, the man charged with murder in the deaths of three members of Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson’s family. CBS 2’s Dana Kozlov reports William Balfour, 30, is accused in the shooting deaths of Hudson’s mother, brother and nephew in 2008. He is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Hudson’s mother, Darnell Donerson, 57; her brother, Jason Hudson, 29; and her nephew, Julian King, 7. – Read more at CBS

Jennifer Hudson: Happy Birthday, Sheyonce! – Jennifer Hudson dresses up and hits the shops on Wednesday (April 4) in NYC. Earlier in the day, the 30-year-old entertainer took to her Twitter to wish her stylist, Eric Archibald, a happy birthday. “Got some cake on your face! Let mama HUD get it!” Jennifer tweeted. – See the Photos at Just Jared

Behind the Scenes with Carrie Underwood – While it used to be a major part of my day-to-day job when I lived in New York, celebrity interviews now are few and far between and a nice break from my traditional daily routine of sitting in front of my computer, writing and researching for magazine articles and guidebooks. So when I was asked to interview Carrie Underwood back in January for Vegas magazine’s cover story for the April/May issue, I was totally stoked. It didn’t hurt that I’ve been a fan of Carrie since her Idol days. – Read more at Camels and Chocolate

Jennifer Lopez & Marc Anthony To Perform Together For ‘Q’Viva’ – NEW YORK, N.Y. — Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony arrive at the Montblanc Cocktail Party co-hosted by Harvey and Bob Weinstein celebrating the Weinstein Company’s Academy Award Nominees at Soho House in West Hollywood on February 26, 2011Caption Marc Anthony says working with Jennifer Lopez is like second nature, which is good since the exes are uniting for one night in concert. The pair have announced they’ll perform together May 26 in Las Vegas as part of “Q’Viva! The Chosen Live,” which will feature the top talent from their televised talent show. “It’s a very unique, modern way, and sexy way, to package these traditional talents,” he said in a phone interview Wednesday. “I’m really, really looking forward to the live show.” – Read more at Access Hollywood

‘Smash’: Uma Thurman Makes First Appearance In ‘Understudy’ (PHOTOS) – “Smash” welcomes Uma Thurman (Mon., April 9, 10 p.m. ET on NBC) in “Understudy” and everything will be turned on its head. Thurman will appear in the final five episodes of “Smash’s” debut season as Rebecca Duvall, a movie star who is brought in to play the role of Marilyn Monroe in Tom (Christian Borle) and Julia’s (Debra Messing) musical, “Bombshell.” Fans will remember Ivy Lynn (Megan Hilty) had the coveted role for the workshop, beating out Katharine McPhee’s newcomer Karen for the part. But with Thurman’s new character, could the former enemies find common ground? – Read more at Huffington Post

Founder and editor of mjsbigblog.com, home of the awesomest fan community on the net. I love cheesy singing shows of all kinds, whether reality or scripted.I adore American Idol, but also love The Voice, Glee, X Factor and more!

If I were Kris, I would have left the album title a mystery for a while. Gotta keep up the intrigue!

Anonymous

Just a note that Lauren starts her tour tonight with Sugarland in I believe Toledo Ohio. She is the second opening act after Cannan Smith which is great for her exsporsure more songs more people in their seats. I also noticed that for that big “Boots” festival on Prince Edward Island in August she is on the Sunday night bill with Carrie being the big act that night.

Pop music programmers are being polled by RCA label representatives about what they feel the second ADAM LAMBERT single should be this week across the country.

According sources close to the label, the choice is between TWO songs from Lambert’s new CD. It’s not clear at this point what those songs are, as they’ve not been personally played for this writer at the time of this post. However, it’s known that the two are more uptempo, and are seen to be more “pop-palatable” by some working with the project than the current single, BETTER THAN I KNOW MYSELF, which is widely seen as being more “adult” sounding and more “downtempo” than mainstream pop programmers seem to want at this time.

The song, however, has been enjoying a substantial run at adult pop radio, and in an interesting parallell, Lambert’s colleague and label-mate, KRIS ALLEN, is also being worked to adult stations as part of what’s being called a “foundation” strategy, meaning that the label is attempting to buttress the projects with support from an older end of the pop audience, hoping that success in this area will cause the songs to flourish as a whole on the mainstream pop charts.

Interesting article. It sounds like a similar strategy to what RCA did with Kelly, although MKIA had way more success on the CHR chart than BTIKM has to date. I’m hoping that Adam’s 2nd single will get way more support with CHR stations. Same thing with Kris, of course :)

Segueing into talking about Kris now: he has a bunch of promo lined up for today — 3 interviews (Yahoo!, Access Hollywood, ClevverNews) and at 3 p.m. Eastern he is doing a livestreamed performance/Q&A for Billboard. Then tomorrow he has an interview with OK! Magazine. Good to see the promo is kicking in, although I’m hoping they will send him out on a radio promo tour starting next week

Anonymous

If I was him, I never would have told the secret, till after the album was released. Because after you hear the explanation, it’s a bit of a let down.

YankeeFan08

I take everything Toby Knapp says with a grain of salt. He’s not the “insider” he would like us all to believe he is.

Kris definitely should have kept the mystery behind the album title for a while longer especially since it’s really not all that interesting now that we know the explanation behind it.

justmefornow

Good luck tonight to both James and Haley!! Hope it sounds something like this. (Couldn’t find video of Haley singing NA, sorry)

I know I can’t post the link here, but there is a huge effort to spread the exposure of Kris’s single/album, and to buy/donate as many as you can afford and share them here in the US and internationally. You can google it. This will not only help with his sales numbers, but allow other people to be exposed to his music (and will love him as his fans do). It is a well organized site for this purpose. (Some people are so dedicated.)

Anonymous

James did a spectacular job here. This is one of the vids I came across during Idol and was so impressed with his voice. Looking forward to his performance next week.

Nele621

Are all the idol spots filled up now? Who is left to get a performance spot? Kris’s performance should really help him to get a bump in sales. But I guess they all do. I’m happy they got his video out so soon. They are learning.

Anonymous

LOL, I doubt that the effort is huge, and these things never work. Fans of idol alums try to do these things all of the time, and nothing ever happens. First of all, most fans don’t have the money to waste by gifting songs to other people, so the number of people who will take part is very small. Secondly, most fans would look at this and laugh, because it just looks silly. And third, this is not how people find out about new music. All fans would love for more people to find out about their fave, but it is going to happen organically.

Anonymous

There is one open date left this month 4/26 & the only date actually confirmed for May is Cook 5/10. Adam has been confirmed for May but the date has not been official released (17th?) & it is pretty well assumed that Carrie will perform (5/3?) since both have cd release those weeks. That would take care of the regular dates.

Anonymous

James’ NA is probably unmatched…tasty melisma and spectacular high E. One suggestion, James….take a cue from Javier and play a moody guitar accompaniment.

Anonymous

It’s not really a huge effort, and those never work well anyway. At best, it provides a small bump in short-term sales. But if people aren’t interested, you can’t force them to be interested.

It would be much more helpful if radio started playing the single in regular rotation, and if Kris goes out on a tour of some sort to promote the music. That is the way to expose anyone’s music to potential new fans. Not giving them away to people who don’t care. It’s different if you know someone who has expressed an interest in an artist’s music but can’t afford to buy it. If I knew someone who wanted really really someone’s album but couldn’t afford it, yeah, I’d buy them a copy (if I could afford it, of course). But buying multiple copies to give to some charity or school or random strangers? Doesn’t really help the artist and tends to make the fanbase look cray.

girlygirl, that’s my opinion too. I remember a few years back gifting a bunch of charity singles to friends from iTunes. Not a single person downloaded. Of course, most of them thought it was junk mail from Apple and deleted the d/l info.

I did gift Kris’ first album to one of my nephew’s. That was only because I happened to buy it for myself just before Christmas. He mentioned how much he liked ‘Live Like You’re Dying’. So I wrapped it and gave it to him. I still haven’t replaced it the physical CD.

itsalleternal

This may not be the best place to put it, but I thought of an idea for The Voice this fall: run it only from mid-September to early November. Then The Sing-Off can take its timeslot after that ends until Christmas. Would that work well?

Anonymous

I take everything Toby Knapp says with a grain of salt. He’s not the “insider” he would like us all to believe he is.

He’s the co-program director at a pop station in the 8th ranked market in the country. I’d say that that makes him an insider. He was right when he predicted that BTIKM would have trouble at pop stations, and he seems to be implying that the same might be the case with TVOL.

Nele621

But TVOL is so much more radio friendly than BTIKM, and even sounds more mainstrain pop.

Just watched Haley – sounded a little off to me, like she was holding back or something – maybe she was really nervous, which would be understandable.

Anonymous

I knew that Uma Thurman was only in for a limited run of shows for SMASH but come to think of it, also making her character pregnant could give the writers a convenient way to get the character out of the starring role but keep Uma around on the TV show a bit longer.

Anonymous

Have to agree Kris should have kept the story behind the album title to himself at least until release. The explanation is pretty boring, IMO. He couldn’t come up with something a little more intriguing than the name of a house? Do people still name their houses? Oh well.

Anonymous

The thing about it is when he starts his radio tour, he’s going to be asked about the story behind the name of his album. He’s going to have to tell a boring story about how it’s named after the house he stays in when he’s in LA. How interesting can that be to tell that story over and over again.

Anonymous

I didn’t think he was implying anything. It’s a marketing strategy that might work out for one song, not work out for another song. It’s a way to crack pop but I don’t think he’s necessarily implying trouble.

Anonymous

Camellia Ave is a street. The Beatles called an album Abbey Road. I don’t know if that’s boring, or just a good name. I think Thanks You Camellia is a good name for a CD. I don’t actually care if the album is called A Can Of Peas, I never realized an album name is supposed to be “intriguing.” But anyhow I’m sure just because he said what the name means, on twitter, the whole world now knows what it means and he will never be asked again what it means.

Anonymous

Well this is even worse. Snoooze.

Anonymous

Katherine McPhee was on Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC this morning. She has just returned from Ghana with Malaria no More passing out mosquito nets. She looked very beautiful and spoke with passion about this worthy cause. I just love her and am so happy that she is making a splash on Smash.

Anonymous

Have to agree Kris should have kept the story behind the album title to himself at least until release. The explanation is pretty boring, IMO. He couldn’t come up with something a little more intriguing than the name of a house? Do people still name their houses? Oh well.

I think the explanation has more meaning than what he posted on twitter, and when Kris talks about it while he promotes his album, he needs to be to go into detail about why it was important to him to name the album Than You Camellia. He can’t do what he did on several occasions, when he talked about the story behind Red Guitar, and give one sentence answers that don’t mention why he bought the guitar, what it means to him, and what it really represents.

I agree that he made a mistake by taking away a very good talking point, and one that was intriguing. I’m not sure what the point was, especially since he rushed through the twitter party in like five minutes, and didn’t get any mileage out of the album title trending.

ETA: I think that Camellia is the name of the street, and the title is Kris’ way of paying tribute to his friends who have let him stay with them, while he’s worked on the album. So, any answers need to include what they’ve done for him, what it’s been like to be living away from home for so long, and what it means to him that his friends would open up their house to him.

It may not be as fun as having people guess what Camellia means, but it could be a sweet segment, where people get a glimpse of who Kris is.

Anonymous

I didn’t think he was implying anything.

I was referring to an earlier entry. Here he is more than implying that RCA is laying a foundation at Hot AC, before they try to promote the song to pop. But, in an earlier entry he implied that some people think that TVOL’s tempo is better suited for Hot AC, and is similar to other popular Hot AC songs.

too-cool-for-school

I like the quirky title. It’s very Kris. The fact that it’s hard to figure out is kinda fun.. at least to me. It gives it a sense of mystery. It isn’t cliche or boring (like how I always felt like the self-titled debut was, sorry to say)

:)

Anonymous

Kris just talked to Billboard’s Julie Brown, and he mentioned that the title is a tribute to his friends. He didn’t have a lot of time, so he didn’t go into a lot of details, but maybe in some other interviews he can go into some stories about what the past year has been like for him.

He’s the co-program director at a pop station in the 8th ranked market in the country. I’d say that that makes him an insider. He was right when he predicted that BTIKM would have trouble at pop stations, and he seems to be implying that the same might be the case with TVOL.

Being in radio doesn’t make someone an insider, especially since he admits he’s not heard the songs in question, which if he were a big deal (being from the 8th ranked market in the country) he would’ve I’m sure.

Toby has thrown so much BS out there it’s ridiculous. He also said Kris would perform on Idol in May and he’s performing mid-April. He seems to guess and speculate and then make a comment based on the guessing.

But TVOL is so much more radio friendly than BTIKM, and even sounds more mainstrain pop.

That’s an opinion that not everyone shares Nele621. TVOL hasn’t gotten very good radio reception, either on Pop or HAC so far which could indicate a few things…it’s not radio friendly (which I don’t agree with, I think it’s very radio friendly) or Kris’ low profile over the last two years has him starting back at beyond square one because with LLWD he had Idol exposure to help him and now he doesn’t even have that.

I’m taking a wait and see attitude with TVOL. It could pick up steam easily, especially if Kris gets out there and does some promo for it.

It pays tribute to both sides of his success – it’s being in LA that gave him the chance to make music, but his friendships are likely an important element in keeping that music grounded in his own reality. It’s sweet.

And he kinda foreshadowed it the album title when he dedicated his Pop Ladies’ Medley to his roommate John at the show at The Mint.

Camellia Ave is a street. The Beatles called an album Abbey Road. I don’t know if that’s boring, or just a good name.

I could care less about album titles as I don’t buy an album based on the the title. But, I have to step in here. Ross, Abbey Road is not just any old street. It’s the name of the street that the recording studio in which The Beatles recorded almost all of their music was located. So, it was pretty significant. :) Again, I’m not interested particularly in what Kris, Ruben, or Insert-Random-Idol-Here title their albums. But, as an avid Beatles’ fan, I had to pass along that little bit of trivia and clarify a common misconception.

Anonymous

Being in radio doesn’t make someone an insider, especially since he admits he’s not heard the songs in question, which if he were a big deal (being from the 8th ranked market in the country) he would’ve I’m sure.

He’s a program director at a top station, which means that those at labels who promote songs are going to do erything in their power to get him to play their artists’ music. In my opinion that makes him an insider.

Whether or not a song is pop or radio friendly is subjective, and the only ones whose opinions count are the program directors.

I am still having trouble with realizing that taste in music is highly individual and subjective. I just love BTIKM and think in stands out on the radio in a good way. Obviously, it has not torn up the charts so it offers another example of the different tastes we all have. I also think TVOL is a pleasant song.

He’s a program director at a top station, which means that those at labels who promote songs are going to do erything in their power to get him to play their artists’ music. In my opinion that makes him an insider.

Then it’s even more baffling why he won’t play their songs. Both songs have remixes that make them more CHR friendly if he feels the original songs don’t fit his station’s format. He seems to be a fan of both guys. It doesn’t make sense that he wouldn’t play their songs if he had the power to do so.

Anonymous

elliegrll & YankeeFan08 to be accurate Toby Knapp is an assistant program director and is one of several. He is on the team that makes recommendations or what to play but the final decision is not his.

Anonymous

lyndseyparker: Thanks @KrisAllen for such a fun interview today. Looking forward to seeing you on Idol April 19th too!

Anonymous

ZsusK, that’s my point. I think Abbey Road is a good title because it meant something to the Beatles and to their fans.But if you didn’t know what it meant, it would be less interesting, not more. The significance makes it interesting. And a good title.

Likewise, I think Kris’s title improves when you know what it means. Anyhow I still don’t think we know the exact significance of it, why he’s grateful, what his friends did for him when he was in LA, but personally I think it’s meaningful, and besides, it sounds good. ANNIEBA thinks all this is boring, so be it.

OK. I think we’re on the same page then. It’s always good to have an album title that makes people think and question. On other hand, no one is going to NOT buy an album based on the title unless the title is incredibly offensive. Like I said, as a Beatles fan, I just had to leap in and mention that bit of trivia. Any opportunity to talk about the Beatles is good to me. :)

Anonymous

I agree with all of your post. :)

Anonymous

It doesn’t work like that, especially at a station in a top ten market, and that is run by a conglomerate that owns more radio stations than any other company. How much a program director likes someone also doesn’t come into play.